Poll: Rubio drops from first to sixth nationally among Republicans after immigration push

posted at 4:01 pm on July 25, 2013 by Allahpundit

The good news for Rubio fans? He’s just six points back of the new leader, Rand Paul. That’s how open the field is. (And how silly polls two years out from a primary are.)

The bad news? He was at 21-22 percent in PPP’s polls earlier this year, which means he’s lost more than half his support. No wonder he’s wasting no time in making repairs.

Three things to note. One: The only candidate who registers double digits across the spectrum is Jeb Bush, brother of the last Republican president. Presumably that’s more a function of name recognition (as so much early data is) than careful appraisal of his positions. Two: Rand Paul is an also-ran among “very liberal” and “somewhat liberal” Republicans. I … would not have guessed that given his moderation on social issues and his big civil-libertarian drone filibuster. Maybe the liberal-ish GOPers aren’t liberal on “values” but rather on the need to protect the welfare state, in which case, yeah, Rand Paul really is their archenemy. Three: Byron York was right. Cruzmania is real, enough so that he’s now the leader among the “very conservative.” (And yet, oddly, far behind among the “somewhat conservative.”) You can see here too why Cruz poses such a threat to Paul especially. Paul finishes second among the “very conservative”; without Cruz here, he probably leads among that group and would enjoy a bigger lead overall. Rubio, by the way, is now sixth among the “very conservative,” a point behind, er, “someone else.”

But whatever. A new WSJ/NBC poll has his favorable rating at 35/13 among conservatives and 47/15 among tea partiers. He can bounce back on the right. The real test of his immigration push is whether it’s made him more “electable” and one gauge of that is to see whether he’s doing markedly better among Latino voters than his GOP rivals. He’s been the face of immigration reform for Republicans in both English-language and Spanish-language media this year. That’s got to mean something, no? Well, not really:

In fairness to him, that’s slightly better than how the rest of the field fares against Hillary with the exception of Jeb Bush. She leads Jeb 51/34, but again, he has more name recognition than Rubio. Christie trails her among Latinos 56/28, Paul trails 57/26, and Ryan trails 54/25, all right in the ballpark of Rubio’s take. What about a hypothetical match-up with Biden instead? Here you go:

That’s better than how Paul and Ryan do against Biden and equal to what Bush does (trailing 46/32), but Christie actually tops Rubio here by trailing only 44/32. There’s a potential lesson there: Since Latino voters in the aggregate trend liberal and Democratic, they might be more likely to gravitate towards a moderate Republican with a short record on immigration like Christie than an otherwise conservative Republican with a big amnesty push to his credit like Rubio. Emphasis on “might,” though: Who knows what happens to these numbers after their respective name recognition moves up to the 90 percent mark in a heated primary.

Thank you, Mr. Evans for reading this bill and for your article! Any Republican who voted in the Senate for anything in this despicable bill, designed solely to benefit the traitors of America, should become politically dead to all GOP voters — no excuse is acceptable — NONE. The same goes for any Republican who votes for any part of this bill in the House. In fact, this bill, written in total by traitors, should be dead on arrival in the House.

Amnesty is the Ebola Virus of political choices. It’s a nation canceller from which there is no recovery.. First it means the permanent death of the two-party system as the Republican Party joins the passenger pigeon in extinction. Next goes American culture and gradually English becomes the secondary language of little importance. Ironically EVEN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WILL EVENTUALLY GO BELLY UP as the United States becomes the northern extension of a Paraguay or a Bolivia.

And if the curse of Amnesty comes to fruition WE CAN THANK MARCO RUBIO WHOSE TREACHERY PAVED THE WAY. Never forgive and never forget.

Isn’t it interesting…. That the Rubio Cheeerleaders now, were Romney Cheerleaders a few months ago, and for the ones who have been around HA long enough, were McCain Cheeerleaders five years ago.(with the glaring exception of bluegill, who on this one topic seems to hold ONE conservative position)

This is interesting. Rand Paul can cuddle up with left wing Democrats to shut down the NSA and that is okay. True conservatives apparently are fine with that. I don’t hear them calling him a RINO when he starts channeling Michael Moore. They are okay with legalizing drugs too I guess….but Rubio has the temerity to do what he thinks is right and they turn on him.

We shall see how this works out, but in terms who could win an election, Rubio has a lot better chance than Rand Paul. I did hear that Rand Paul finally got rid of his pro Confederacy staffer.

Rand Paul, is supposedly number one and it took him how long to fire a guy who thought it was a good thing for Booth to kill Lincoln? that is just sad.

Oh, I wasn’t clear; Sorry.. I didn’t mean that all Romney supporters are now Rubio supporters.. I just meant that most Rubio supporters seem to have been supporters of previous DIABLOs (Democrats In All But Label Only).

And I don’t remember you calling ‘true cons’ idiots and traitors and being really obnoxious over your support for Romnney like so many of the others.

If you dont see the contradiction, you are intentionally obtuse or have a creepy preference for political sleazebags.

Valkyriepundit on July 25, 2013 at 5:45 PM

He was a big Crist fan, after all.

You’re going to need to be a tad more specific there than “immigration hawk” and “dove”.

I’ve yet to see how Rubio lied.

JetBoy on July 25, 2013 at 6:11 PM

Rubio in 2010:

Rubio: As far as amnesty, that’s where the governor and I disagree. He would have voted for the McCain plan. I think that plan is wrong, and the reason why I think it’s wrong is that if you grant amnesty, as the governor proposes that we do, in any form, whether it’s back of the line or so forth, you will destroy any chance we will ever have of having a legal immigration system that works here in America.

…Well, we have a path for citizenship. It’s called coming legally into this country. The ones who are already here. You can’t do it …

A key part of your sovereignty is the ability to control the influx and out flow of your people is the ability to secure your border. And you’re never going to be able to do that if you have an immigration system that says “come to this country illegally. If you’re able to stay here long enough, you’re able to stay here forever.” And you’re never going to have a legal immigration system that works if you grant amnesty.

Rubio: But that’s not necessarily what I’ve said in the past. What I’ve said in the past is that there is a pathway to citizenship, and that is the legal immigration system. And all this bill does is give people access to the legal immigration system. It allows them to earn an access to the legal immigration system. And so what we are doing is we are creating an alternative to that path that exists now. And quite frankly, it’ll be cheaper, faster and easier to leave and wait ten years than it will be to go through this process that we’ve designed.

It’s an unpopular opinion to hold here, but I’m of the opinion that such a “pathway” is inevitable, given the number of illegal immigrants already here. But to sit there and say that Rubio never flipped is just dishonest on your part.

This is interesting. Rand Paul can cuddle up with left wing Democrats to shut down the NSA and that is okay. True conservatives apparently are fine with that. I don’t hear them calling him a RINO when he starts channeling Michael Moore. They are okay with legalizing drugs too I guess….but Rubio has the temerity to do what he thinks is right and they turn on him.

We shall see how this works out, but in terms who could win an election, Rubio has a lot better chance than Rand Paul. I did hear that Rand Paul finally got rid of his pro Confederacy staffer.

Rand Paul, is supposedly number one and it took him how long to fire a guy who thought it was a good thing for Booth to kill Lincoln? that is just sad.

Terrye on July 25, 2013 at 6:02 PM

Your frustration is amusing and completely deserved. All you Paul haters are going to be in for a long primary season.

Now that’s the closest I’ve seen to anything that could be construed as a lie.

It’s an unpopular opinion to hold here, but I’m of the opinion that such a “pathway” is inevitable, given the number of illegal immigrants already here. But to sit there and say that Rubio never flipped is just dishonest on your part.

ddrintn on July 25, 2013 at 6:23 PM

I’m not a dishonest person…I may be a lot of things, but dishonest isn’t one of ’em. And absolutely, some form of a pathway to citizenship is inevitable, like it or not. But it’s not going to be some windfall for illegals either. It’s not going to be a very easy pathway.

He was a big Crist fan, after all.

Guilty as charged…I bought into that turd hook, line, and sinker. A bit ironic now, that the HotAir Rubio fan club has turned on Crist’s ol’ GOP primary nemesis.

.
Hate is pretty harsh. We want the capitulation to stop- have some backbone- and enforce the border security. If not- we’re just looking at the same problem 15-20 years from now – just as we are doing now with the dream of ’86 (RR). Thats a real argument he (they) should be able to make to America.

Your better argument would also be that Rubio- being a product of immigration – can in no way let the liberal culture define him as a hypocritical racist on immigration- with their lies and distortions abounding – otherwise his future is over at 42 – as he can be portrayed as a heartless hombre- wishing to destroy Mexican immigrant families and of course look like he hates Mexican womens also.

It’s an unpopular opinion to hold here, but I’m of the opinion that such a “pathway” is inevitable, given the number of illegal immigrants already here.

ddrintn on July 25, 2013 at 6:23 PM

There already is a pathway for illegals: if their children or grandchildren are born in the US they will be citizens by default. The “life in the shadows” is merely a generational problem. As long as we dont start taking our laws seriously and deport accordingly, these huge, illegaly initiated demographic changes will come either way.

And I don’t remember you calling ‘true cons’ idiots and traitors and being really obnoxious over your support for Romnney like so many of the others.

LegendHasIt on July 25, 2013 at 6:09 PM

Copy that, bruh. No hurt here.

What’s hurt is JetBoy‘s memory. JB — you have got to be effing kidding, right?

Rubio ran as a right-fringe “any pathway to citizenship is amnesty and it’s a disaster” conservative. Now after developing an amnesty of his very own, he’s actually claiming that by passing a law to make illegal aliens legal, he’s stopping illegal immigration?

Thank you, Mr. Evans for reading this bill and for your article! Any Republican who voted in the Senate for anything in this despicable bill, designed solely to benefit the traitors of America, should become politically dead to all GOP voters — no excuse is acceptable — NONE. The same goes for any Republican who votes for any part of this bill in the House. In fact, this bill, written in total by traitors, should be dead on arrival in the House.

I don’t see anything contradictory then vs. now.
JetBoy on July 25, 2013 at 5:35 PM

of course not. And so these conversations are stupid. You will continue to say you see no contradiction in Rubio running for office on one principle and pivoting to collude in a Chuck Schumer-driven bill clearly intended to serve an opposite objective and the totality of which deception and Leftist authorship is hard to itemize…

and whose paper-promises anybody at all familiar with the history and machinations of the Left knows won’t last as long as it takes the ink to dry from Obama’s pen.

So carry on with Rubio.

But he’s actually worse than a liar, as he hasn’t the guts even to stick by his commitment as Schumer and the rest of them have but has slithered away to pander in order to live and lie another day over another conservative issue he “feels strongly about” until the pressures are applied by the elitists he so clearly values (and/or fears) over his supposed base.

Thank you for this. I have Burr written down on my notes. Also, Cornyn and Kirk have removed their names from Senator Mike Lee’s letter. Evidently McConnell is behind this.

You are right with the numbers in both Houses needed. Boehner & McConnell are working to defeat Cruz & Lee’s efforts. We are going to have to melt the phones. If everyone on HA would just call their own Reps & Senators, we can do this!!

I heard Redstate have a new article up on this too, but haven’t gotten there yet.

Rubio is finished. Those that think he can bounce back are living in a bubble and not seeing the anger and disgust that avg people now have towards Rubio. It’s not really about immigration its about Rubio being a politician and lying to the voters. It’s a read my lips moment and like bush the first Rubio lost all trust with voters.

If only the traitor, and all who are like him, will burn in Hell, slowly, in the coldest layer Schadenfreude on July 25,2013 at 4:04 PM

There are three or four loons here who just can’t disagree with a politician, they have to have fantasies of piano wire and tire white-walling and sticking hot fireplace pokers up anuses. Marcus on July 25, 2013 at 4:30 PM

heh thanks for checking the poll. The propaganda begins. They need to make the base think their boys haven;t got a chance

The pols are testing the McCain strategy. By stacking the primary field with a wide variance in choices, and overloading the debate chairs, so no one gets enough face time, they hope to knock out the 9 percenters and nominate the 10 percenter. Part of the strategy: when the bell rings, a bunch of planted candidates fold so their followers drop into the lap of the Manchurian McCain candidate

Each plant has to represent one sub category of the base for the game to work. IMHO it will not work this time

is it wise to write off a 42 year old rising star? Or are his talents and potential worth investing in?
RightWay79 on July 25, 2013 at 4:39 PM

Yes, because Rubio was set up for the Senate run by the King of Amnesty, and falsely represented as anti amnesty to get elected. He is a plant and a fake. It was a coordinated strategy involving many. Totally crooked. He was made the only face of amnesty, by the gang behind him, because he was either going to rocket up like another JFK, or die like a dead duck.

Rubio turned out to be pathetic liar. He is pure rat. Dead as a doornail. No biggie for the Gang. He will eat well

To solve the ILLEGAL alien problem, the U.S. should start by following Britain’s lead:

As part of a pilot scheme to help reduce illegal immigration in Britain, vans with billboards emblazoned with the slogan “Go home or face arrest” will be driven around London boroughs.

The message in full reads: “In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.” A hotline number is also shown where illegal immigrants may receive help and advice with travel documents. Leaflets and posters will be distributed in tandem with the billboard vans in the targeted boroughs.

British Immigration Minister Mark Harper has described the new initiative as “an alternative to being led away in handcuffs.”

“Every single day our enforcement officers are arresting, detaining and removing people with no right to be in the UK,” said Harper, adding that the mobile billboards are part of a new push to make it more difficult for people to live and work in the UK illegally. According to UK government figures 28,000 illegal arrivals voluntarily left the UK last year.

Rubio, Christie, MC’Dumbass, and Grahamnasty are all more than welcome to go allow the dems to dp/dt each other…and then find a short rope attached to a large tree branch…our leadership sucks…may they all burn in hell…yet it is the will of the dumbass people who actually do vote…how long will it take to convince the masses?

The democrats were planning on pushing an immigration plan with or without Rubio. They were hoping to tell Hispanics and Latinos that Rubio hates them and doesn’t want them to have the privileges he has.

So from the drink of water on, they were hoping to ruin one of our favorite candidates. They were not going to stop until they made it all bad press all the time. It worked.

All of the ads I heard for immigration reform made it sound like everything I wanted. All of what I read on the blogs told me that it was bait and switch. I guess I am one that does not blame Rubio, he had to stick with his principles, and we can rely on the media to twist that until the headlines tell conservatives that their guy wants to be like the progressives on immigration. Twas kabuki theater, and as long as nothing bad gets passed I am willing to give rubio another chance…but then, I am not really a Rand Paul fan.

We conservatives tried to warn y’all about Wee Marco Rubio.(Hispanics know the difference between a Cubano and their vast majority)
… And Christie, and Jeb Bush, and, and, and, whoever else happens to be Ann Coulter’s “Conservative” savior du jour.
Rand Paul is the man.
Ted Cruz, as much as I respect and admire him, needs to pivot from his one-eyed focus on social issues. Über SoCons aint goin’ nowhere.
Let’s keep our eyes on the prize. That prize is the economy, foreign relations, corruption in government, and rampant abuse of money and power.
~(Ä)~

“[The] people who think that building higher walls or deeper walls or moats and alligators and stuff,” Norquist says, “they’re chasing problems that can be fixed more easily by expanding liberty rather than contracting it.”

Instead of standing for the rule of law and appealing to the majority of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats — and 40% of Hispanics — these traitors are trying to out-pander the Democrats by appealing to the 54% of the (noisy) Hispanics who demand amnesty, but will NEVER vote for a Republican. Sheeesh!